This invention relates to document scanners and more particularly to a user interface for document scanners. Even more particularly, the invention relates to a user interface high-lighter function for a user interface for document scanners that allows a user to automatically select a portion of text, or several disjoint portions of text, within one or more regions of text in a preview scan of a document or documents for directed input for image processing.
Current scanner technology allows a user to capture and utilize all or portions of various scanned documents, images, objects, etc. for use within various computer applications, even when the documents are comprised of a variety of different components. A document or documents containing text, black and white and/or color photographs, graphics, and color and black and white line art can be scanned in their entirety. Alternatively, the user may choose to select only certain portions of the original document or documents for scanning by utilizing scanner software to select an area or particular image contained in a preview scan of the document or documents. The selected area is then optimally re-scanned to produce a final image that can be utilized in an end application.
The Click and Select User Interface for Document Scanning allows the user to automatically select a region of interest from the preview scan of the document or documents by positioning a mouse cursor within the region of interest, and then clicking the mouse button. Image processing is performed by the scanner software starting with the click point as input, and a bounding box is then displayed around the region of interest as determined by the image processing. The user then has the ability to readily override the first estimate of the bounding box, if it proves not to be what the user wanted, by using other functions of the user interface.
However, there are some situations where, in utilizing the Click and Select User Interface for Document Scanning, the user would not be able to override the first estimate of the bounding box to select only the desired region of interest to send to an end application. Examples are when a user wishes to select only a portion of a text region that cannot be confined in a rectangular box, or the user wishes to select two or more disjoint portions of text within a text region.
It is thus apparent that there is a need in the art for an improved method or apparatus which solves the objects of the invention. The present invention meets these and other needs in the art.
This application is a continuation-in-part of application Ser. No 09/164,693 of Jeffrey P. Lee et al. filed Oct. 1, 1998 entitled Click and Select User Interface for Document Scanning, which is incorporated herein by reference for all that is disclosed and taught therein.
It is an aspect of the present invention to provide a user interface for scanner software that allows a user to easily select specific portions of text regions from a preview scan of a document or documents.
It is another aspect of the invention to use a high-lighter function, which is an easy, logical, and familiar motif, for selecting specific portions of text regions from a preview scan of a document or documents.
Yet another aspect of the invention is to allow a user to use a high-lighter function to select two or more disjoint portions of text within text regions from a preview scan of a document or documents.
Still another aspect of the invention is to utilize the pixels traversed by an active edge of a high-lighter icon as input to an image processing routine to determine a selected bitmapped data area.
A further aspect of the invention is to display a polygonal bounding box around the selected bitmapped data area as determined by an image processing routine.
A still further aspect of the invention is to deselect portions of text that have been selected utilizing a high-lighter icon in an un-high-lighter mode.
Another aspect of the invention is to utilize the selected bitmapped data area represented by the selected text as input for an optimized re-scan of the document or documents.
The above and other aspects of the invention are accomplished in a user interface for scanner software that allows a variable resolution preview scan of a document or documents to be presented to the user in a variable resolution preview window of a computer monitor. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, the Click and Select User Interface for Document Scanning is used allowing a user to click on a point within a region of interest in the variable resolution preview window that represents the underlying bitmapped data from the variable resolution preview scan. Based on the characteristics of the bitmapped data represented at the click point, an image processing routine determines an area that encompasses the click point and the neighboring points that have similar characteristics to that of the bitmapped data at the click point. This area is then classified by type based on the characteristics of the bitmapped data represented within the area, such as text, grayscale image, color image, or black and white image. A selection marker is then automatically displayed around the area as a first estimate of what the user intended by making the mouse click at the click point.
The selection marker may be a bounding box rectangular in shape. For non-rectangular xe2x80x9classoxe2x80x9d regions, image analysis software may be applied, automatically tracing around the lasso region of interest. Portions of the scanned document or documents that lie outside the selection marker are grayed out. Based on the determination of the type of area, adjustments are made automatically to data type, exposure, color, resolution, and sharpness settings.
If the selection marker automatically generated does not represent the image of interest desired by the user, the user can adjust the size of the region of interest to include more area or include less area in several different ways. One such way is by dragging the selection marker handles appropriately, expanding or contracting the selected area. Or, the user may simultaneously click on a point and hold down a control key on a keyboard, or right click on the mouse, to either expand the region or image of interest to include additional area, or contract the region or image of interest to exclude area already selected. The user may also right click on the mouse to pop up a context menu, and select an xe2x80x9cExpand Selectionxe2x80x9d option or select a xe2x80x9cContract Selectionxe2x80x9d option from the menu. In addition, a different region of interest can be selected by the user by clicking in an unselected area of the variable resolution preview scan, and dragging the mouse to create a rectangular area bounded by a rectangular selection marker.
Based on the type of image, floating windows displayed on the monitor having tools for adjusting various aspects of the selected area are automatically enabled or disabled from user input. Once the region of interest is properly selected, and any adjustments have been made, the user can use a mouse to drag and drop the selected area onto the desktop, a writeable folder, or onto an open application to launch an optimized final scan, or re-scan, of the selected area. After the optimized re-scan, the resulting image data resides in the desktop, folder, in a file, or within the open application. Alternatively, the user may utilize pull down menus or buttons to launch the optimized re-scan. However, if the pull down menu is used, then xe2x80x9csave to filexe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9ccopy to clipboardxe2x80x9d, and xe2x80x9cprintxe2x80x9d are the only options available. Thus, the resulting image data will not automatically appear in an open application if this option is utilized.
Both OCR (optical character recognition) packages and the Click and Select User Interface for Document Scanning provide automated segmentation of text regions. Lines, paragraphs, and even columns of text are generated by these text-processing methods. However, neither of these two solutions is convenient for selecting only specific portions of text within a text region, such as a few lines from a single paragraph, or multiple lines from adjacent paragraphs, or disjoint text from various text regions in the preview scan of a document or documents. OCR packages will typically convert an entire set of paragraphs into their ASCII form, after which the user will need to make corrections and delete the words they did not wish to select. Similarly, when using the Click and Select User Interface for Document Scanning, often more text than the user actually intended to select will be generated from image processing the bitmapped data in the preview scan. The user will have to change the outlining boundary (as is also the case for OCR) to select only the specific text that they are interested in. This is a process that can be confusing and cumbersome if the text region cannot be bounded rectangularly, as when the specific text does not start or end at the start and end of lines in the text column or paragraph, or when the text wraps around an image, etc.
To enable selection of specific portions of text, the present invention employs a high-lighter function as part of the user interface for scanner software. The scanning software provides a high-lighter icon, which is a bitmapped tool, at the user interface level. The high-lighter icon can be activated to replace the normal mouse cursor either by a tool bar menu, or by right clicking the mouse to access a pop-up menu, and then selecting an xe2x80x9cActivate High-Lighterxe2x80x9d option from the tool bar menu or the pop-up menu. When the user wants to highlight text, the user holds down the left mouse button and drags the active edge of the high-lighter icon over the desired portions of text displayed on the monitor. The non-text or xe2x80x9cbackgroundxe2x80x9d pixels on the monitor traversed by the active edge of the high-lighter icon are changed to a different color, such as yellow or pink, to visually indicate to the user which portions of text have been traversed by the high-lighter icon. The text pixels are left unchanged, giving the visual effect one would have if a real high-lighter pen were used on a real piece of paper containing text. The user interface can be returned to the default (non-high-lighter) mode by a tool bar menu, or by right clicking the mouse to access a pop-up menu, and selecting a xe2x80x9cDeactivate High-Lighterxe2x80x9d option from the tool bar menu or the pop-up menu.
After high-lighting text, in the preferred embodiment of the invention, the image processing routine of the Click and Select User Interface for Document Scanning uses the set of high-lighted pixels as the substitute input instead of a click point. Text regions are generated from these pixels until the selected text exhausts all of the high-lighted pixels. The regions are then cropped as necessary to prevent adding non-high-lighted text at the beginning and end of high-lighted lines. A polygonal bounding box is then displayed around the selected portions of text, and the background pixels that were changed to a different color are restored to their original color. In an alternative embodiment of the invention, all the background pixels within the polygonal bounding box are changed to the high-lighter color. An optimized re-scan can now be performed utilizing the bitmapped data represented by the selected text areas within the polygonal bounding boxes.